First-aid certification that lapsed three years ago cost the head of Rhode Island's E-911 Emergency Telephone System his job. Acting Director Gregory Scungio was reassigned Wednesday by State Police Superintendent and Department of Public Safety Director James Manni, the state announced. As a result of Scungio's expired certification as an instructor, employees he had trained since February 2016 also "do not have valid certification," Manni said. State Police Lt. Michael McGlynn now is acting director of E-911. Rhode Island Public Radio a few days ago requested verification of Scungio’s Red Cross certifications, the network reported Thursday. State and federal officials and industry groups declined to comment or didn't respond.

Commissioners are expected to approve a Further NPRM Friday that would enable first responders to more accurately identify the floor level for most wireless 911 calls from multistory buildings. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks are expected to raise questions about the FCC's approach. The FNPRM proposes a vertical location accuracy metric, a z-axis, of plus or minus 3 meters for 80 percent of indoor wireless calls to 911.

Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld slammed an FCC draft Further NPRM for not taking privacy into account in rules requiring carriers be able to find callers to 911 with greater accuracy. The FNPRM is to be voted on Friday (see 1902210048). Feld filed on a call he received from an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks asking about that issue. “The failure of the FNPRM to mention privacy or security is inexcusable in light of continued revelations that carriers appear to be unable to protect properly customer real-time geolocation information,” Feld said in docket 07-114, posted Wednesday. “Only last week, Vice ran a third story on the ease with which stalkers, bounty hunters and debt collectors and others can obtain access to [assisted GPS] information.”

Comments are due April 15, replies April 28 on an FCC Further NPRM seeking IP captioned telephone service program changes, according to a proposed rule for Thursday's Federal Register and a timetable. It proposes to require providers to add user account identifiers to call records submitted for compensation, allow new users to receive service for up to two weeks while their identities are verified in a user registration database, and simplify processing of 911 calls by users who connect to a provider over the internet. The FNPRM and an attached order were adopted unanimously Feb. 14 (see 1902140032).

The final meeting Friday of the Communications, Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council under its current charter focused on next-generation 911 (NG911), network security, and recommendations for future CSRICs to pursue. The body is expected to be rechartered, said CSRIC’s designated FCC federal officer Jeffery Goldthorp. The group voted to approve a set of best practices for NG911 that included recommendations for testing the service, monitoring its use and preventing outages. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield and American Cable Association Board Chair Robert Gessner expressed concerns that some of the best practices would be difficult for smaller carriers to implement. It would be “challenging” if some of the best practices “moved from a should to a must,” said Bloomfield. No CSRIC members voted against the best practices. The council also approved recommendations for future CSRICs to study aspects of network security for the Domain Name System and the Border Gateway Protocol. Future CSRICs may want to consider the effect on internet stability and fragility of alternative network systems, said Travis Russell, Oracle director-cybersecurity.

CTIA sought tweaks to the FCC draft Further NPRM that proposes carriers be required to identify a vertical location accuracy metric, also known as the z-axis, of plus or minus 3 meters for 80 percent of indoor wireless calls to 911. It's set for a vote by commissioners next week (see 1902220062). CTIA and Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint met Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth and bureau staff, said a filing Wednesday in docket 07-114. “Further technology development and testing remains necessary to validate the accuracy of vertical location technology solutions to meet the FCC’s proposed metric … across regions, weather conditions and devices.” The association asked to modify a sentence in the draft requiring compliance with the standards, adding the words “as demonstrated in the test bed.” CTIA asked to seek comment “on ways to ensure that the rules maintain flexibility and technological neutrality so that … providers can adopt any solutions that meet the proposed metric and corresponding Commission rules.” The group noted another round of vertical-accuracy testing is underway in the industry’s location technologies test bed (see 1902260064). “Given the ongoing evolution of vertical location solutions, the participants urged the Commission to encourage all z-axis technology solutions vendors to participate in Stage Za,” the filing said.

Deluged with some 1.5 million 911 calls annually, Washington, D.C., is again encouraging nonemergency police calls via 311, an FCBA tour of the city’s emergency call center was told Thursday. The center's approximately 200 911 operators and staff were “spending so much time on 911” for nonemergency situations, it reverted to urging people to call 311 to reach police non-urgently, said a spokesperson for the D.C. Office of Unified Communications. The nonemergency 311 city services number at OUC, with about 100 employees, gets about 2 million calls a year and also runs at all times. “We’ve done stuff on social media,” and are working with a company to possibly promote 311 to reach police when it's not an emergency, she responded to our question. A direct mail campaign is possible, she added. Between 20 and 30 percent of 911 calls aren’t emergencies, she noted. D.C.'s work with RapidSOS to better locate wireless callers (see 1808080016) appears to be achieving intended results, another official told us. “That’s been a huge game changer” and is “awesome,” the spokesperson said. She also noted that in the city, Uber passengers can use the app to notify the office of an emergency. She said such a feature could conceivably also come from Lyft. That company wouldn't comment on whether its app will allow similar. Lyft works "hard to design policies and features that protect our community" and looks "for ways to improve," a spokesperson emailed. "In the rare event that drivers need to call 911, they can do so from within the app, which will display the driver’s current location and vehicle information, including license plate number, making it easy for them to tell 911 dispatchers the details." OUC has completed three of five phases of moving to next-generation 911, and is about 80 percent along the multiyear initiative, Director Karima Holmes told the group. She said the initiative costs about $10 million. “We’ve done a lot of infrastructure work," she said. OUC has been able to get texts in emergencies for a few years, but "we don't get a lot," the spokesperson said.

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Norma Torres, D-Calif., seek co-sponsors for their forthcoming 911 Saves Act, to change the federal government's classification of public safety call-takers and dispatchers (see 1902280029) as “protective service occupations.” The Standard Occupational Classification system classifies those jobs as “office and administrative support occupations,” which “includes secretaries, office clerks, and taxicab dispatchers,” Fitzpatrick and Torres wrote colleagues. “We believe this is based on an outdated, misinformed view of the work performed.” The protective service occupations classification encompasses “a broad range of 'protective' occupations: lifeguards, fish and game wardens, parking enforcement workers, firefighters, and even playground monitors,” the lawmakers said. “As former a 9-1-1 Dispatcher and FBI agent, we can tell you that the nature of their work is absolutely protective."

Comments are due March 28, replies April 12 on petitions by AT&T's BellSouth and four Alabama 911 districts for an interconnected VoIP ruling, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice in Wednesday's Daily Digest and docket 19-44. Petitions "request that the Commission issue a declaratory ruling to respond to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama’s primary jurisdiction referral" on a dispute "regarding BellSouth’s billing of 911 charges for its business telephone service and the Alabama 911 Districts’ position that such service qualifies as [VoIP] or similar service pursuant to Alabama’s 911 statute," the PN said. BellSouth asked the FCC to clarify aspects of non-VoIP calls, and prohibit state and local governments from requiring interconnected VoIP customers to pay more in total 911 fees than comparable non-VoIP customers (see 1901280037). Clarify that IP customer premises equipment "encompasses all equipment that transmits, processes, or receives IP packets located on or within the customer’s or building owner’s premises," petitioned the 911 districts of three counties and Birmingham.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Maryland Senate Finance Committee took up the Senate version of small-cell legislation considered by the House Economic Matters Committee. The Senate panel heard testimony Tuesday evening on industry-supported SB-937 and local government-backed SB-713, after a lengthy hearing on other bills. A Verizon official warned that absent industry-friendly legislation, the state might not see 5G anytime soon.